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1999 WORLD BENCH PRESS CHAMPIONSHIPS
RESULTS: BENCH: 253.5lbs.3RD PLACE 132lb WEIGHT CLASS MEET DESCRIPTION: Vassa, Finland sure is cold and dark in December. Why Vassa in December? That’s where the Bench Press World Championships were just held. Where is Vassa located? Vassa is about one hour from the Arctic Circle. That means it snows 24 hours a day and that there is only one hour of sunlight. It took a little getting used to coming from North Carolina, but the accommodations were fantastic and the meet was run well. Now to the competition, the first thing to mention is that jet lag is real. Not knowing that Jennifer would qualify for the World Team, in only her third meet, we did not have much time to prepare and had to make last minute arrangements. We left on Wednesday night around 5:00 p.m. and arrived in Vassa, Finland around 11:00 p.m. Thursday night. That’s 7 hours of time change, 16 hours of flight time, 5 hours of layovers, and a 3 hour delay because of a blizzard in Helsinki. That left Jennifer with only one good night sleep. Weigh-in started at 8:30 am and lifting at 10:00 am. Don’t forget that’s 3:00 am Charlotte time, a little early for lifting weights. Jennifer made weight fairly easy, after eating airplane food for 24 hours, but appeared tired and nervous from the start. Lack of experience showed early. In Jen’s opening attempt of 253.5 lbs. the spotter essentially just throw the weight to her. The weight was still swaying around down over her stomach when she was given the start command. Only being in her third competition, Jen did not know to steady or rack the bar and started the lift. She gave it a good try, but with the bar moving around, there was no chance. On her second attempt, with some help from the team coaches, she was able to get a better hand-off and 253.5 lbs. went up easy. This tied the American record. Unfortunately, her third attempt at 265 lbs. was again plagued by a bad hand-off and probably a lot of jet lag and she was not able to pull it off. The hand-offs were so bad however that it caused the girl from Chinese Taipei to separate her shoulder. Jennifer settled with what she considered a sub par performance of 253.5 lbs. This was good enough for third place in the World and tied the existing American record. Not bad for a 3:00 am lift halfway around the world in only your third competition. Oh yeah, don’t forget a steady diet of salmon and reindeer (no beef and not much chicken in Finland). If you are ever in Finland the red bills are worth a $100 and the orange ones are worth $10.
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Special Thanks to Richard Weed and Carol Latta Chromosome Donors
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